


it's more like a song

by outboxed (fallencrest)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, M/M, Prohibition, Speakeasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 22:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1758505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/pseuds/outboxed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His father opens the door, music spilling out like the chaos of Pandora's box with a newly sprung lid. There's light, suddenly, and laughter, and the smell of perfume mingled in with the alcohol. "Your kingdom," he says and Loras doesn't doubt that it is but doesn't know, at the same time, how true those words will prove to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's more like a song

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a gift for stannis_b on LJ, for round 9 of the got-exchange and originally posted [there](http://got-exchange.livejournal.com/114902.html#cutid1).

He smiles too much, laughs too loud, his eyes are too blue or too green depending how you look at them and, really, Loras thinks, really, he oughtn't to have so many different ways of looking at them. He hadn't planned to look.  
   
*  
   
His father opens the door, music spilling out like the chaos of Pandora's box with a newly sprung lid. There's light, suddenly, and laughter, and the smell of perfume mingled in with the alcohol.  
   
"Your kingdom," he says and Loras doesn't doubt that it is but doesn't know, at the same time, how true those words will prove to be.  
   
*  
   
There's something heady about it, the world of it. And it's not that Loras hasn't been to places like it; because Loras, with his winning smile and bright eyes, can get in anywhere, invite card or secret handshake no longer required. But this, this is different. This is his.  
   
*  
   
The bartender is far from what he'd expected. She's not a beautiful woman, she is worlds away from being a beautiful woman. And she gives him a frown which says that she dislikes him already, distrusts him even, even though she's got to know that he's the boss now and her job is his to dispense with.  
   
The waitresses are more what he'd expected with short dresses swinging with fringe at the hem, half-modest at the same time that they're far from it. He smiles at them and they fawn the way he's found himself becoming used to. He's well used to it now, for all that he's not yet twenty.  
   
The clients flock around him like he's a movie star and not the boss' kid - though Loras isn't really sure what the difference should be. He doesn't think most of him know that he's the latter, not the former, in all honesty, and he embraces it. He smiles and plays at being a prized patron as often as he plays at being the boss.  
   
*

That one smile catches him off guard though.

"So, you're the boss' son," the smile says, showing too-white teeth. "I didn't dare to think he'd send me the pretty one."

His hand is on Loras' shoulder and, oh, how had Loras failed to notice what had just walked in.

The smile resolves itself into a man in an ostentatious suit who Loras recognises with a shock that twists his stomach in a manner not wholly unpleasant. He should have recognised him when he was only just a smile.

*

He doesn't know Renly Baratheon. It's almost impossible to know Renly Baratheon.

Loras knows his smile and the way he used to walk in and out of Mace's office as though it were his right to do so as he pleased. 

Loras knows that he answers almost every single question with a question of his own. 

And he knows that when he asked his father about him, he received a deflection in place of an answer. 

He'd been younger then and perhaps that explained it: you don't tell your teenage son about your prized bootlegger when you aren't ready to bring him in on that side of the business yet. 

But he still doesn't know who Renly is or what he does when there he is, in the bar, smiling that smile and saying "so you're the boss' son". Maybe by then someone should have given him a clue.

*

He doesn't know what to say to Renly. At least, he doesn't know at first. 

He's used to just saying what he wants and not minding what people think, and to people not minding what he says, as long as he smiles and looks pretty. Being at a loss for what to say all of a sudden jars with him a little.

He looks up at Renly and stalls before saying "Loras, I'm Loras."

"A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance," Renly says, still almost as much a smile as he is a person. 

He holds out his hand to shake and says, "Renly," making sure to catch Loras' eye when he says it and Loras is, well, already lost. 

(He won't admit it but he was lost long before that.)

*

It's later, much later, that Renly smiles and says, "you want me to tell you what I actually do?" because he's leaving town, going on a run, and Loras thinks Renly must be able to feel his apprehension like a chill on the wind, because he's never told him before. He's always evaded before, as though it were a secret to get to be told.

*

"You are aware that it doesn't actually matter if I get caught, aren't you?" he says, when Loras asks him questions. It's good business sense, he thinks, to factor in the risks, and rum-running is a damn big risk. Everything they do is a damn big risk but what Renly does is far from the smallest of them.

"Why wouldn't it matter?" is the response Loras offers up, half indignation, imagining Renly with his smiles and his quips sees all this as a game. He does, that much is obvious, only-

"My brother's the mayor." Renly says, laughing, easy. "Well, one of my brothers is. And the less said about the other the better," and his laugh catches there, snagged in his throat as though that is one thing he cannot quite find it in himself to laugh about. 

"They would no more press charges against me than saw off their own hands. It'd be as good as sawing off their own hands to do it. Have no fear on my account, my sweet prince." And he laughs again, seeing Loras' indignant look upon his condescension. 

"I'm not afraid," Loras says. 

He realises he is though, when Renly replies "aren't you?" and means something quite apart from the family business.

*

Renly wears outrageous suits the way that mobsters do. His favourite hat is green with a gold ribbon for a band and he carries off the ostentation as though it is a challenge. Loras thought, at first, that this must be a distinct disadvantage in a line of work where it ought to pay to be inconspicuous but, like a mobster in his full white suit, what Renly's wardrobe really does is dare a challenge it knows no sane man would answer.

Renly dares a challenge with his look and with his looks – they linger and catch. He, at least, Loras thinks, is never afraid. At least not in show. 

 

*

Renly smiles and says, "you know, it wouldn't hurt a soul if you'd only say you were glad to see me." 

He's two days late and Loras wants to hit him sooner than speak to him.

*

Renly smiles and says, "you know, it wouldn't hurt a soul if you'd only kiss me."

There had been kisses pressed to Loras' neck and breath across his cheek when Renly had pretense to be quite close enough; but there had never been a kiss. Not that sort of kiss.

*

Loras smiles and says "you do know I'm the boss."

"His son," Renly joins.

"Not in this house." 

"Bar."

"Not in this-" 

It was never worth arguing about. And when Renly kisses him, quick and defiant, he wants to say he's won the argument, only by then they've both forgotten the argument.

*

There's half a bottle of their best whiskey open in the back room and Loras never understood before about why you wouldn't just find somewhere more comfortable. 

He understands now.

*

There's no-one in the place because it's 2pm on a Tuesday and they're closed and everything feels right until then, all of a sudden, there's Brienne. And he tries to laugh it off but he can't quite do it. Renly laughs about it but that's later and it's Loras' face he's laughing at and no-one else's, so he says. But they still kiss and Renly still presses him against the leather booth, like it's nothing. Like all of this is just a pleasant (aching, exhilarating) nothing.

*

Renly says a lot of things but never the one thing you want him to. Renly never gives a straight answer, never offers up a simple truth.

He never says what he thinks he's doing – what he thinks they're doing. But he kisses like he means it and maybe that's enough.

(It should be but it isn't.)

*

Loras may catch the most eyes, may solicit the most immediate attention; but Renly's charm holds them, always. When Renly jokes everyone laughs and smiles and there is not a soul in the place who doesn't seem to know him. He compliments the girls on their dresses, their new rouge, and reaches out to touch, fleeting and easy as though each one of them was his lover. Loras has no such ease.

Sure, he is easy enough, charming enough, but he's new to this and used to getting by on his status and his looks. He's never had to work to engage anyone's attention: whether because of his father or his face, they've always come to him. They still come to him but it is for Renly that they stay.

*

There's a party, a big one. A movie star, an honest-to-god star, is in the city, come back from the studios out West, and they're putting on a party. There's a band playing and the place is packed and everyone is there. All the regulars and half the rest of the town it seems like. 

Loras plays the part of the patron, rather than the boss. He mingles, he meets. He plays a game of cards with some execs who are mostly strangers and is thrust in the way of the star who frowns at him like he's something troublesome. 

The movie star nudges the man stood behind him with his back turned and, oh, that's where he's been hiding in plain view, as if Loras shouldn't've been able to see him from across any room. 

“Do me a favour would you,” the movie star says, “and keep this one away from LA. He could be the ruin of me.” And it's a joke, Loras thinks, it must be, but it isn't spoken much like one. 

“Remind you of someone?” Renly says, smiling, and elbowing the movie star playfully, the way most men would never dare. 

“Don't I know it,” the movie star says. 

And Loras is going to ask but then a woman's voice calls out, saying “Jaime!” 

Jaime's face lights right up, he turns toward a beautiful woman whom the crowd seems to have parted around (blonde hair, red dress, she might be his double), then turns back a moment. 

“Do remember what I said about LA,” he says, with real charm, looking at Loras rather than at Renly. And then he's gone, disappearing into the crowd toward the source of the voice.

Left alone together in the throng, Renly turns to him for the first time all night and Loras suddenly feels like the perfect centre of the universe. 

Renly takes his arm and smiles, says “Let me introduce you around. My brother's here. I don't think you've met my brother.”

*

There's another party. This time it's a smaller affair, fewer strangers, and Renly's loose-limbed, loose-tongued and laughing at everything. He leans over to Loras, who's just emerged from the centre of a group of people who'd waylaid him far too long when all he wanted was to just go to Renly, to be the one making him laugh like that. 

Renly leans in, breath heavy with drink, and says, “be honest now, how many of them have you had?” 

Loras feels something spread cold through him, pricking at his skin, and he freezes where he stands, unable to respond in word or deed. 

“Come on now,” Renly says, “don't be a prude. I know you aren't one.”

There are two desires fighting in Loras: the desire to kiss Renly right there, in front of everyone and say, no, it's him, it's always been him; and the desire to hit him, hard. 

Renly laughs. And, god, Loras wishes he'd do anything but laugh. 

“How many have you,” Loras says, hesitating at the term “had?” 

“Oh all of them, darling.” Renly says, still laughing. And then he leans in and whispers “but none of them were half as good as you.”

Loras is tense and doesn't smile. He doesn't think he'd know how to smile at that. 

*

Later, weeks or months later, Loras doesn't count time like that, Renly owns that he was joking – half joking. He says he used to have a lover in every town he passed through. And weren't those the days, only- “look at me, look” and he catches Loras' wrist, lightly, doesn't pull, knows Loras is trying to leave. 

They're in Renly's apartment and it's nothing like Loras would have expected. Nothing quite so elaborate as he'd expected but, then, how much time could Renly possibly spend here after all.

“This is all I want,” Renly says. 

Loras turns back to face him. 

Renly reaches up with his other hand and Loras leans into his touch, can't help leaning in towards Renly the way he has since the beginning. 

“Just you,” Renly says, kissing him, breaking away to look him in the eye and say “I promise.” 

And Renly is all about bold, false statements, empty jokes and evasions, empty promises but this, this doesn't feel like an empty promise. 

*

Renly smiles and twirls Loras' sister in a dance like she's a puppet on a string. But he looks only at Loras. 

*

Renly smiles and talks with Brienne like she's as beautiful as any woman he's ever met, but when Loras comes in, brushes fingers to his waist casual and secret, Renly turns toward him and his tone shifts completely when he says “I was wondering when you'd get in.”

*

Renly smiles and puts a record on the gramophone. There's only candlelight in the whole place and it's completely empty. “Happy birthday,” he says, “would you care to dance?”

He'd said he'd be away for another week, had been penitent but promised they could celebrate when he was back. 

“I-” Loras says, “I have a dinner, I-”

“One dance,” Renly says. 

Loras is late for the dinner, but not too late, not too ruffled, and Renly promises he'll be there when Loras gets back. 

“What a role reversal,” Renly says, smiling and laughing as always, “me waiting for you.”

Loras can't quite bring himself to count on it, the way he can never quite bring himself to count on Renly for anything. Renly is so beautiful and fleeting and never someone you'd want to pin down even if you could because it might ruin the magic of him, his being so resolutely his own, so resolutely unconcerned with anybody else. 

When he comes back, Loras tells himself he's just stopping by, the way he always does, he doesn't expect anything.

But Renly's there when Loras gets back.

And, god, if Loras can't help the feeling welling up inside of him, the dumb, hopeless wish that Renly always, always will be there.

They kiss like there isn't anything else, just them, just them and nothing else. They kiss until they're out of breath and Loras thinks the room might be spinning and really, really all it was was that Renly had stayed a few hours, nothing more. But somehow it means everything.

*

Renly smiles and says, “you know, I think I might be a little bit in love with you.”

Renly smiles and he might be joking, might be hedging his bets, the way he does, but Loras is past doubt and past caring.

“You know,” Loras says, “I think you might.” 

They both smile and the music plays, the patrons come and go, fringe swings on the hems of dresses and liquor flows. 

Loras looks around the room and back at Renly and he smiles.


End file.
